Stoopid Noob Questions

Hiya folks! I've been poking around these forums and have a few questions:

1) Is there an easy way to find tabs for baritone uke? Most seem to be for "re-entrant tuning". I think that means a soprano uke tuned to G-C-E-A ? Other tabs are for "Low G" - I assume that is re-entrant tuning with the G an octave lower? But I'll be darned if I can find tabs for baritone tuned to D-G-B-E.
2) Can I just use the tab fingerings from non-baritone tunings directly ? I mean, it will be a different key, but if my understanding is correct, it should work.

Thanks for any info you can provide!

You'll need to define your understanding of the term "tabs". There are several interpretations of the term in general circulation, not all of which are deemed strictly correct.

"Conventional" hi-G tuning is the "normal" re-entrant gCEA, where the G string is tuned one whole note (two semitones) below the A string.

Lo-G has a thicker G string which is tuned an octave below the hi-G string, the other three strings are tuned the same in both cases.

DGBE (usually low-D, but not necessarily) uses the same chord SHAPES as GCEA, but plays 5 semitones lower - a C-chord shape on a gCEA plays a G chord on a baritone ... the fingering is the same ... so, yes, you can use low-G tabs on a baritone and they'll work.

:music:

Seems to me there is still a big gap in resources for standard uke and baritone.

You can use any normal 'ukulele tab and play it on baritone with the shown fingerings. It will be in a different key, but it will sound fine.

Whilst there are other resources, make a note of this place.
http://humblebaritonics.blogspot.co.uk/p/dgbe-songs.html

Here are some tabs for baritone.
https://sites.google.com/site/tabs4ukes/dgbe

As others have said, if you are playing alone, you can use tabs for either. The only difference will be in pitch.

On the other hand, if you are playing along with someone who has an 'ukulele tuned GCEA you'll both want different tabs, customized to your instrument's tuning.

You can take any tab for linear tuning and play it on your baritone. If the GCEA tab is in the key of C, you'll be playing in G. If you want to play in the same key with others and all you've got is GCEA tab, then put a capo on the 5th fret.

You can also play re-entrant tab. If the tab wants a melody note on the 4th string, find that note on a different string instead. For harmony notes it doesn't matter so much if you're an octave down; it's just a different chord voicing. Campanella-style tabs (with the melody jumping between 1st and 4th strings) are hard to convert to linear; leave them for later.

You can also try guitar tab. Ignore the missing strings and see what happens.

Those who stray from the beaten path must be prepared to forge their own trails. I don't think we'll ever reach a point where DGBE is as common as GCEA so the more flexible your coping strategies, the better. When all else fails, some bari players get special strings to tune re-entrant DGBE or even GCEA an octave below standard tuning.

Hi. I've been playing about a year and a half, but just recently picked up a baritone. If you re-tune to DGBD you can play banjo tabs!! Also in DGBE you can play guitar tabs, but you have to move the 5th & 6th string notes up to the 4th. Not too much work if you're working with shorter beginnerish pieces.

Probably the best advice is to invest some time to learn to read standard music notation. Then tab will be useful, but not essential. Imagine being able to just pick up any lead sheet and being able to play it! I've gotten to the point where I can do that in the keys of C and F in C6 tuning! Its nice to have freedom from tab!

The Daily Ukulele baritone edition might be helpful.
https://www.walmart.com/ip/The-Dail...75035&wl11=online&wl12=29510486&wl13=&veh=sem

Your D-G-B-E baritone is the same tuning as the first four strings of a guitar. (The four highest in pitch, closest to the ground) Which means that a lot of guitar chords are the same, just with two more strings. So for strumming you can often refer to guitar tabs. There will be occasions where this doesn't work, but it should work fine most of the time.

I would also recommend taking a few lessons with a teacher who plays both guitar and ukulele. They can walk you through how the instruments relate to each other.
I have actually started taking lessons from a guitar teacher who doesn't play uke, but understands my application. So he teaches me theory and how it applies to both instruments the same way.

actadh said:

The Daily Ukulele baritone edition might be helpful.
https://www.walmart.com/ip/The-Dail...75035&wl11=online&wl12=29510486&wl13=&veh=sem

Click to expand...

I did buy the Daily Ukulele, Baritone Leap Year edition. So far so good.

Laura - do you know if the Leap Year version has different songs compared to the normal baritone edition or are many of the songs the same ?

Different songs.

I've got both the normal editions, the bari edition is just a transposition of them.